"The eaters sit around a thick wood table with a hole in the middle.  Boys bring in the monkey at the end of a pole.  Its neck is in a collar at the end of the pole, and it is screaming.  Its hands are tied behind it.  They clamp the monkey into the table; the whole table fits like another collar around its neck.  Using a surgeon's saw, the cooks cut a clean line in a circle at the top of its head.  To loosen the bone, they tap with a tiny hammer and wedge here and there with a silver pick.  Then an old woman reaches out her hand to the monkey's face and up to its scalp, where she tufts some hairs and lifts off the lid of the skull.  The eaters spoon out the brains" (92).

This was disgusting to read--I was reminded of a scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where Indiana and his companions are served chilled monkey brains in India.  But I had no idea that eating monkey brains involves killing the monkey at the table while it screams.  Again, I had a hard time reading this.

My face when I read this passage...

"The Japanese, though "little," were not ghosts, the only foreigners considered not ghosts by the Chinese" (93).

It's interesting to think that the Chinese consider many foreigners ghosts.  I think that this sentiment has a lot to do with the xenophobia that seemingly pervades much of Chinese society.  Does this fear have to do with the fact that the Chinese have been relatively isolated from the rest of the world throughout their several thousand-year history?

Apparently the Beijing Olympics spurred a lot of xenophobia when athletes from many different countries converged on China for the sporting festival.

"Much as I dream recurringly about shrinking babies, I dream that the sky is covered from horizon to horizon with rows of airplanes, dirigibles, rocket ships, flying bombs, their formations as even as stitches" (96).

I can't imagine what it would be like to look up in the sky in the morning only to see hundreds of bombers flying overhead.  So many millions of people had to deal with such an image on a daily basis during World War II; I'm sure that such a hauntingly eery vision caused nightmares in many survivors.

Goosebumps

"Her American children had no feelings and no memory" (115).

Another example of Chinese "racism" (I guess a better way to put it is "perceived superiority"), but what stands most out to me is how Brave Orchid criticizes Moon Orchid's children over their lack of memory.  In my TC on Landscapes in Art, Literature, and Geography, Dr. Lai has made evident to us just how important of a role memory plays in Chinese culture.  Really, I'm just fascinated by how different our cultures are.

The aspect of a "shared cultural memory" is essential to understanding China's culture. For example, the peach blossoms in this painting allude to a famous fable, The Peach Blossom Spring, and represent peace and serenity.

"For thirty years she had been receiving money from him from America.  But she had never told him that she wanted to come to the United States.  She waited for him to suggest it, but he never did" (124).

This is absurd!  How can a man just up and leave his wife for thirty years, starting a new life in a different country with a second wife.  Whenever I hear stories of men mistreating their partners, I grow absolutely livid--I just don't understand how people can so utterly disrespect those that they love.